The Future of Social Networking

Have you noticed that social networking seems to be heading more towards getting all the buzz out to everybody? These sites try to convince us that our coworkers want to hear about the raging party we went to last night, or our friends want to hear about the latest advancements in widget technology. They want us to believe that we can attain popular notoriety by constantly throwing posts at the wall to see what sticks.

Let’s examine this theory: I have accounts with several social networking sites, the two most popular we will call “Race Took” and “Plitter”. On these sites I have a contacts list that contains some family, friends, my wife-to-be, and some fellow bloggers. Every morning I check both of these sites to see what’s going on. “Race Took” will have about 160 or so posts to browse through – “Plitter” will have even more. How do I even go through all of these posts in just the few minutes that I have before starting my workday?

Now, I do not have a huge list of contacts. It’s quite small, actually when compared to those that I have seen with thousands of followers, or subscribers, or whatnot. I am afraid to put more people on my contact list for fear that I will be overwhelmed by what my grandfather used to call “raucous cacophony” (loosely translated to mean “discordant noise”).

The other problem is that my friends don’t really care about my latest blog post on the advantages of micro-niche marketing, and my coworkers don’t really want to hear about how Jason ended the evening with a lampshade on his head. As a matter of fact, every single post that I send out will wind up on the wall of people that care about the topic and people that don’t. The more “noise” I introduce to a segment of my contacts, the fewer of my posts to those people will get read.

This is not an uncommon phenomenon. If you want a smaller percentage of your posts read, add more contacts. It’s not the most efficient use of your time, but the more contacts you add, the smaller the percentage of those contacts will actually read your posts.

What about your personal info? There is information about me that I want some people to know, but not others. I know people that have multiple accounts under different names for different purposes, but that seems a bit excessive. I have found myself resigned to just filling out my profiles with the most generic of information. That’s not ideal, but it beats the alternative.

So what do I want? I want my contacts categorize into groups that I can easily manage. I want to see what’s going on with my friends or my coworkers or my networking contacts just by going to the appropriate “wall”. I want to be on my “friends” wall and post something and know that only my “friends” will see it. I want to search for all of my contacts that live near me and quickly and easily send a post to just them. I want my coworkers to go to my profile and see that I am a responsible professional, or my networking contacts to read that I am a blue widgets expert. I want my friends to see the picture I took of Jason with the lampshade on his head, without my coworkers inquiring as to quality of my friends.

Since I am sending posts only to people that I want to read them, more people will actually read more of my posts. I can let my networking contacts know when I have a new blog post up, or ask my friends whats going on this weekend and know that the right people got the post.

What I am looking for is a kind of a “buzz conduit”. I want something that will channel the buzz to the people I want, and organize everybody’s buzz for me to read in a way that I see fit. I want to share things with people without sacrificing my privacy.

While it seems that the web 2.0 giants are not likely to do anything like this any time soon, there is a site launching that will. It will enable you, me, and everybody else that wants to to have their very own buzz conduit. It will be called buzzduit.com, and it’s being built as we speak.

Head over to buzzduit.com and sign up to the mailing list, so you will know the MINUTE it is ready for launch! Once on the list you can also email support with any questions or feedback.

Related posts:

1. Why Go To Online Dating Sites When You Have Social Networking Sites? If you are single and looking to find a partner,...
2. Online Seduction – 8 Awesome Tips Online seduction is easy if you follow a a small...
3. A Romantic Weekend Is In Your Future – Tips And Ideas To Help Make It Happen You need some romantic weekend ideas to help get you...
4. 7 Myspace Dating Tips Myspace dating is effortless if you recognize what you're doing!...
5. Social Security Number Reverse Search The probability for you to find someone free by SSN...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.